Flooding poses a significant threat to society, ecosystem, and infrastructure, including Department of Defense (DoD) installations. To adapt and prevent interruptions to critical DoD operations, it is important to develop a comprehensive assessment framework of flood risks to DoD infrastructures. To this end, the objective of the project is to utilize a high-resolution hierarchical modeling framework for assessing flood vulnerability for selected DoD installations and surrounding communities.

This project will demonstrate flood vulnerability assessment, by developing and implementing a high-resolution, physics-based hierarchical modeling framework. The framework comprises hydrologic and two-dimensional hydrodynamic models to generate high-resolution ensemble inundation maps under historic and future conditions. The framework will help inform flood vulnerability through the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 effort. The ensemble inundation data will be used for a frequency analysis as a consistent approach for evaluating flood inundation. The resulting high-resolution inundation maps will help identify the vulnerability of existing infrastructure.

The expected project outcomes include: (a) high-resolution inundation maps, and (b) a novel high-fidelity, high-resolution integrated modeling tool based on open-source data and software generating these maps for sites of DoD interest. This methodology will have the capability to be expanded to other DoD sites within and outside the U.S. The resulting data may be linked with existing tools and methods that are being developed by DoD for direct integration, visualization, and dissemination to benefit the end-users/decision-makers. DoD managers will be provided with the most up-to-date future inundation projections to support informed decision-making regarding flood mitigation measures and planning to safeguard DoD installations from future flood hazards. (Anticipated Project Completion - 2026)